Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) (5 page)

“Not in that place.”

The barest trace of a frown touched Konstantin’s lips. “I’m aware of that. I am telling you, it could be arranged.”

“Yet it hasn’t been. Despite multiple tries.”

Konstantin’s bloodless lips pressed flat, and Brick held up an apologetic hand.

“I am telling you, sir, we have tried that approach. It has failed utterly.”

Brick inclined his head politely, shaking his head. Both gestures constituted more thoughtful artifice than communication.

“...They have screened out all but a handful of candidates we have offered them, sir. The few that got through did not survive the procedure, save one. That one is now a resident of the Bonaventara Mental Health Hospital, outside of Atlanta, Georgia.”
 

Pausing for effect, Brick made a rolling gesture with one hand.

“They will not hire anyone, save those vetted extensively through their system. They disqualify potential employees for even having visited many parts of the world. They give blood tests, and seem to be able to determine quite a bit from those tests... far more than simply the race of the person’s birth.”

He paused, letting his words be heard in their full meaning.
 

“Respectfully,
Patrón
, we cannot risk ourselves in that way. Moreover, if we overstep in our attempts to get inside, they may realize we are aware of the nature of their little ‘operation’ and move our people out of our reach totally. If our names get attached to this, there is no reason to believe the government will not act against us, igniting an even more perilous war than the one we face now. I did the best I could with the parameters you requested. My approach will get the job done quickly and effectively... and if we leave no witnesses, there will be no direct connection to us.”

“Absolutely not,” Konstantin said.

“But may I ask why, sir?” Brick persisted. “Why are you catering to these animals in favor of our own people?”

Konstantin gave him a hard look. “I know you have a personal interest in this, Brick, so I will overlook the impudence of your manner of address. I have told you why. Fighting a war on two fronts does not benefit us.”

“What makes you think the seers will know of this operation in the first place?”

“They will find out. The psychic will talk.”

“Talk? To who?” Brick held up his hands, containing his contempt with an effort that time. “We will cut him off from all of those of his kind. We have him over a barrel with his race. We truthfully have far less to lose than the seers do, now that we know exposure may have already occurred for us.”

Trailing when he saw a sharper look rise to Konstantin’s eyes, Brick shrugged. “Anyway, if he becomes a problem, we kill him.”

“He may be an outsider, but he is a nephew by marriage,” Konstantin reminded him. “Lucky... Charles... may not like him, but he will be honor-bound to avenge him. You know how these animals think. They are clannish.”

Brick smiled, nodding. “Yes. They are. But again, sir, you are assuming they would know it was us who had him.”
 

Hesitating when he saw a harder frown touch the other’s lips, he went on less flippantly.
 

“As I said, I did the best I could with the parameters I was given. If you want me to come up with a different plan, it will take time. Significant time, perhaps.”

Konstantin continued to frown. “Or perhaps I need to find someone who can implement a plan that falls within the actual parameters I listed.”
 

Pausing, he let his voice grow more conciliatory, almost paternal.
 

“I know you are young, Brick, and that this is personal for you, as I said. But you do not realize what you are proposing, starting a war with creatures of this kind. He is mated, too, which will compound the problem. The psychics have no ability at all to be rational when it comes to their mates. She will hunt us. She will not be reasoned with in any way... not even via the threat of exposure. She won’t care, especially if you kill him.”

Muttering again, he shook his head. “You really don’t want to know how savage they can be under such circumstances, Brick.”

Brick smiled, he couldn’t help it. “Because such a thing is so foreign to our race?”

Konstantin turned sharply, giving him a disbelieving look. “You really
don’t
understand, if you think it is the same. Moreover, this nephew of Charles is said to be bad even for his own kind. Did you know he kills professionally? For humans? How can we trust one who has no honor?”

Brick fought not to roll his eyes again.

“He is a mercenary, yes,” he conceded. “But that will hardly be a disadvantage to us, given what we want him for. And Konstantin, we
cannot
use one of our own, which leaves us few options. Really, there is risk in using any outsider in this task. At least with a seer, we have credible threats we can employ. They are harder to kill than humans, too, which will be a distinct advantage given the environment. More importantly still, the procedure itself won’t kill him.”

“It doesn’t kill all humans, either.”

Brick let out an involuntary snort. “Not all. Just half. And the other half it drives insane. How long must I wait, and how many must I train and discard in search of one who might make it through that process without either outcome? There is no comparison between
any
human and a seer’s ability to regenerate.”

The elder waved off his words, acknowledging them with a frown and a noncommittal gesture. Turning, he went back to staring through the dark-tinted windows.

“You are not thinking of trying to recruit this one, are you?” Konstantin turned slightly, giving him a meaningful look. “Because
that
is something I could perhaps bring back to the Council.” He studied Brick’s face. “I hear the marriage was not approved of... that Charles actively tried to thwart the union. Sources tell me his new ‘nephew’ is aware of this, and obedient likely only as a courtesy to his new wife.”

Brick adjusted his black tie over the black tailored dress shirt he wore, using the time to think how to respond. He straightened the lines of an equally black and tailored suit jacket over the shirt. The combination cost him an obscene amount of money for mere clothes, even without the Italian dress shoes he wore and the diamond-studded cuff links and matching watch.

To Brick, it was worth every penny.

If he was going to do this creature of night thing, he would do it in style.

“No,” Brick said finally, after he’d thought through possible responses. “I do not think Charles’ nephew can be recruited. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect we will likely have to kill him at the end of this, if you truly wish to keep the details of our involvement from Charles. The nephew is strong-willed. He is also not what I would classify as a ‘joiner’... despite his stints in the military. He is rich, arrogant, luxury-loving, well-connected, and used to having an unfair advantage over his environment.”

Brick felt his mouth quirk, right before he met Konstantin’s gaze.

“Think me, only with shitty taste in clothes,” he smiled.

Konstantin’s frown deepened, and Brick looked away, letting his voice grow more business-like.

“...More than any of that, he will not join us because we are an enemy race,” he said, still adjusting his sleeves. “He would
never
join us, for that reason alone.”
 

At the other’s quirked eyebrow, Brick inclined his head.
 

“Unlike some of our spies, I believe his race loyalty to be sincere. I know he is criticized for being stand-offish with his fellow seers, but from my observations, it is not disloyalty which causes him to act so. He has a deep-seated ideological difference of opinion with Charles. One his wife seems to share. I suspect he would recruit more seers to his side if he could, and away from Charles’ flock. I also suspect he hopes to use his wife’s connections to Charles to do that very thing at some point... which is likely the real reason he is playing nice now. To win Charles’ trust.”

Tilting his head with a faint smile, he kept his tone business-like.

“...So no, I do not think he could be recruited. It is a pity though, I rather like him, from what I’ve seen. He’s devious, smart and knows how to play the long game... even with his wife. He also doesn’t shy away from a good fight. I think he rather relishes them, actually, which is yet another reason he is perfect for this job.”

Adjusting his tie a touch to the right when he saw his reflection in the tinted glass, he let out a mock-regretful sigh.

“In any case, we don’t
need
to recruit him for this. I am quite confident he can be coerced. He can even be controlled, I believe... with the proper tools and motivation, and I intend to employ both.”

“How?”

Konstantin’s expression remained inscrutable, but Brick found himself getting glimpses behind it, regardless. Moreover, the fact that he’d engaged him in this little Q&A told him that Konstantin was finding Brick’s words more persuasive than he was pretending.

“Like all of his race, he has his weaknesses,” he said. “One weakness in particular, from what I hear, will keep him handily in line.”

“And what weakness is that?” Konstantin said.

“His wife, of course.” Tilting his head at the obviousness of that, Brick smiled, leaning his hands on the metal window sill and stretching his back. “And yes... for his kind, it is a sadly predictable weakness. Very useful for us, however.”

Konstantin didn’t look away from Brick’s face.

He also did not appear convinced.

For a long moment, both of them only stood there, overlooking the city’s skyscrapers and the distant view of the ocean. Brick didn’t look too often or too long, but he could tell by the old man’s taut expression that he was weighing the different things Brick had said.

Eventually, his narrow lips pressed firm, right before he sighed.

“None of that is any good to us, Betial, if he cannot do what we need him to do. Moreover, you told me before he is not even aware of us, correct? As per the treaty with Charles, no one in either of our camps who did not already possess that information was given it. So you would have to educate him in that matter, first.”

“Or... not,” Brick said, shrugging. “He is hardly a fool. He will put the pieces together well enough on his own, particularly once he is inside the facility. Telling him in advance might only give him further reason to fight us.”

Konstantin gave Brick a harder look below his black and iron-gray eyebrows. “There is much at stake in this. Our whole family, perhaps.”

“I do understand that, sir. Believe me, I do.”

“I wonder sometimes.” Konstantin’s eyes went back to scanning the horizon. “You seem to enjoy this work a little too much at times, Brick... even with your desire to free Lila. And you are too young to remember our first run-ins with the psychics.”

Brick heard the real anger there.

He knew some of it was aimed at him, at his supposed arrogance and refusal to abide in his place. But Brick had been warning the others, including Konstantin, about the dangers these foreigners posed from the very beginning. He hardly felt the need to pretend he was quaking in his boots now.

The truce was a farce.

All it had done was allow that fucker, Charles––or “Lucky,” as his followers called him––to gather strength and consolidate power. It had given him the time to build an empire, along with the time to seek out and draw more and more recruits into his fold, indoctrinating them into more and more zealous ideological beliefs.

If it were up to Brick, he would have wiped them out while there were still only a few of them here. Then he would have assigned a permanent team of hunters to seek out and kill each new one as it appeared in the years since.

He certainly wouldn’t have stood around and whinged and whined and wrung his hands while they made themselves formidable. Now Lucky was competing with them directly on the world stage, including in the business arena. The paltry tributes he paid would never justify allowing such a thing, not for those who never belonged here in the first place.
 

This wasn’t their world. It belonged to Brick, and those like him.

So no, Brick would not apologize.

That this was an issue at all came from sheer stupidity on the part of the elders. The problem had been entirely preventable, and easily contained––until it was not.